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The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

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Nikky Finney was born on the coast of South Carolina in 1957 to a family of politicians and activists. She began writing poetry as a young girl, during a childhood marked by the civil rights struggle, and subsequently attended Talladega College in Alabama.

Finney's first book of poetry, On Wings Made of Gauze (W. Morrow, 1985), followed by Rice (Sister Vision, 1995), Heartwood (University of Kentucky Press, 1997), and The World is Round (InnerLight Publishing, 2003). In 2011, her collection Head Off & Split (Northwestern University Press, 2011) was awarded the National Book Award.

As a photographer and performance artist, Finney worked to engage her political and artistic selves, before finding a unique fusion of the two in her poetry. She is deeply invested in the Black Arts movement, and is a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets, a group of multiracial poets devoted to giving voice to the diversity of Appalachia. Finney is also on the Board of Cave Canem.

In addition to the National Book Award, Finney has received a PEN American Open Book Award and the Benjamin Franklin Award for Poetry. She has taught at the University of Kentucky, is currently a professor at the University of South Carolina.

The Condoleezza Suite [Excerpt]

Nikky Finney, 1957

Concerto no. 7: Condoleezza {working out} at the Watergate

Condoleezza rises at four,
stepping on the treadmill.
Her long fingers brace the two slim handles
of accommodating steel.
She steadies her sleepy legs for the long day ahead.
She doesn't get very far.
Her knees buckle wanting back
last night's dream.
[dream #9]She is fifteen and leaning forward from the bench,
playing Mozart's piano concerto in D minor, alone,
before the gawking, disbelieving, applauding crowd.
not [dream #2]
She is nine, and not in the church that explodes into dust,
the heart pine floor giving way beneath her friend Denise,
rocketing her up into the air like a jack-in-the-box
of a Black girl, wrapped in a Dixie cross.
She ups the speed on the treadmill, remembering,
she has to be three times as good.
Don't mix up your dreams Condi.
She runs faster, back to the right, finally hitting her stride.
Mozart returns to her side.
She is fifteen again, all smiles, and relocated
to the peaks of the Rocky Mountains,
where she and the Steinway
are the only Black people in the room.

Nikky Finney

by this poet

Sundown, the day nearly eaten away,
the Boxcar Willies peep. Their
inside-eyes push black and plump
against walls of pumpkin skin. I step
into dying backyard light. Both hands
steal into the swollen summer air,
a blind reach into a blaze of acid,
ghost bloom of nacre & breast.
One Atlantan Cherokee

One woman drives across five states just to see her. The woman being driven to has no idea anyone's headed her way. The driving woman crosses three bridges & seven lakes just to get to her door. She stops along the highway, wades into the soggy ground, cuts down coral-eyed cattails, carries them to her car as